“Prophecy.” The chancellor tapped a finger thoughtfully on his chin. “Let me see if I can remember. I must admit, now I come to think of it, that I was rather baffled by her mentioning the subject. I can’t imagine what she was thinking! There have been so many prophecies given to our people over the past centuries, you see. We use them to amuse the children.”
Haplo’d seen the look on the chancellor’s face when Jera mentioned the prophecy. Pons hadn’t been amused.
Before the Patryn could pursue the subject, the chancellor began discussing, with seeming innocence, the runes on the game pieces, obviously trying to wheedle information. Now it was Haplo’s turn to dodge Pons’s questions. Eventually the chancellor dropped the subject, the two proceeded through the narrow corridors in silence.
The atmosphere of the catacombs was dank and heavy and chill. The smell of decay hung in the air so thickly that Haplo could have sworn he tasted it, like oil on the back of the throat. The only sounds he heard were the footsteps of the dead, leading them on.
“What’s this?” came a strange voice suddenly.
The chancellor gasped, involuntarily reached out and grasped hold of Haplo’s arm, the living clinging to the living. Haplo himself was disconcerted to feel his heart lurch in his chest and did not rebuke Pons for touching him, although he irritably shook the grasping hand free almost immediately.
A ghostly shape emerged from the shadows into the torchlight.
“Flame and ash, you startled me, preserver!” Pons scolded, mopping his forehead with the sleeve of his black robes, trimmed in green—the mark of his ranking in court. “Don’t ever do that again!”
“I beg your pardon, My Lord, but we’re not accustomed to seeing the living down here.”
The figure bowed. Haplo saw—to his relief, although he didn’t like to admit it—that the man was alive.
“You better get used to it,” Pons said in acerbic tones, obviously attempting to compensate for his former weakness. “Here’s a live prisoner for you and he’s to be well treated, by orders of His Majesty.”
“Live prisoners,” said the preserver, with a cold glance at Haplo, “are a nuisance.”
“I know, I know, but it can’t be helped. This one—” Pons drew the preserver to one side, whispered earnestly into the man’s ear.
The gaze of both men shifted to tattooed runes on the skin of Haplo’s hands and arms. Their stares made his flesh crawl, but he forced himself to stand still beneath the scrutiny. He’d be damned if he’d give them the satisfaction of seeing that they made him uncomfortable.
The preserver didn’t appear particularly mollified. “Freak or not, when all’s said and done, he has to be fed and watered and watched, doesn’t he? And I’m only one man down here during the sleep-half shift, with no help, although I’ve asked for it often enough.”
“His Majesty is aware. . . deeply regrets. . . can’t be done at this time . . .” Pons was murmuring.
The preserver snorted, waved a hand at Haplo, gave an order to one of the dead. “Put the live one in the cell next to the dead one who came in tonight. I can work on one and keep my eye on the other.”
“I’m certain His Majesty will be wanting to speak to you on the morrow,” said the chancellor, by way of bidding Haplo farewell.
I’m certain he will, Haplo answered, but not aloud. He pulled back from the cadaver’s touch. “Make that thing keep its hands off me!”
“What did I tell you?” the preserver demanded of Pons. “Come with me, then.”
Haplo and his escort marched past cells occupied by corpses, some of them lying on cold, stone beds, others up and moving aimlessly about. In the shadows, the phantasms could be seen hovering near their corpses, the faint pale glow they gave off softly illuminating the cell’s darkness. Iron bars with locked doors prevented escape from the small, cavelike cells.
“You bolt the doors against the dead?” Haplo asked, almost laughing.
The preserver came to halt, fumbled with a key in the door of an empty cell. Glancing at the cell across from him, Haplo saw the prince’s corpse, a gaping hole in its chest, being laid out on a stone bier by two cadavers.